Shape shifting, puppies, and slapping, oh my!

Friday January 6, 2012

First, my  brother and I are in park walking along a trail and he has a brand new Sheltie puppy. He has this weird harness made of chains, instead of the regular comfortable material, and her front legs keep getting caught in it, and he doesn’t notice. So I keep reminding him that she’s getting caught and probably hurting herself, and he seems mildly concerned, fixes her harness and keeps walking. This keeps happening and I’m getting increasingly frustrated with him, “Pay attention!” I yell at him. He just shrugs. We keep walking and I try and teach him how to positively reinforce the puppy when she obeys a command by saying, “yes” in a high pitched voice and giving her a treat. I demonstrate this a few times and the puppy is wagging her tail and trotting along. (Let me just say by this point I’m in love with this puppy, but have no plans to steal it, even though I seem more interested in her than my brother). He tries the reinforcing but it doesn’t seem to work. 

Then he lets her (GASP) OFF LEASH. The park is in between 2 roads, and across the roads are all these backyards/houses with no fences. I yell at him, “WHAT THE HELL! She could get hit by a car, she could get lost, how are you going to catch up with her? She doesn’t even know her name, how would you call her and how would she come back?” Then, get this, I slap my brother on the face. Like, full on slapped. Which is kind of weird because I used my left hand, but I’m right-handed.  He stands there shocked. “Shit” I say. “I’m sorry, I only meant to do it lightly to get your attention, did that hurt?” He says no, and looks at me bewildered. “You can slap me back,” I say. “It’s only fair.” So my little brother slaps me back. 

Now we’re even and move on to being worried about the dog again. He does not seem overly concerned with any of the things I said, but replies, “She’ll be fine, she’s smarter than you think she is.” And of course, the baby puppy sits nicely and doesn’t run away.

Cut to a scene where I’m a shape shifter, as a Wolf, (thanks to watching True Blood last night) and my brother is a Duck. He’s having problems in this pond we're in (go figure) because it’s so cold and the water is freezing solid. We get out of the water and see some other shape shifting Wolves coming at us, so I tell him to fly away and I’ll shape shift to something else. As he’s shifting, a Swan with a loud, burly voice (think Barry White) flies by and says, “Have fun with that.” And as the wolves are closing in, all I can think about is how hilarious it looks to have a pretty Swan with the manliest/deepest voice I’ve ever heard.